It was going to be a quiet night. Until we discovered a new bar in the neighbourhood. I have yet to pack and we have a car booked for 5.45 AM. We set two alarms and we asked the doorman to call us. Still, I am not sure I will wake up in time to shower and pack.See you Tuesday¡

Tonight I came home straight from the office. The idea was to pack and sleep, in that order, but I fell asleep immediately instead and was awoken by a phone call past 7 PM. For several very long seconds I had no idea which day it was, whether it was morning or afternoon, whether I was alone at home or not. Finally, my brain connected. I still have not packed. Guess I'll do it tomorrow. Either that or I'll just throw a few whatevers in a bag and hope for the best. I can hardly wait to be on that plane.Instead of packing I had a couple of long phone conversations. One in particular was an eye-opener. I have a friend in human resources and she told me about all sort of opportunities I could avail myself with. The future seems less bleak now. I am slowly understanding that I can really do whatever I want. The "reasonable" solution might not work for me. Historically, it hasn't. Basically, I have now three options: stay within the organization but start looking for a different job; quit and join the free market; or wait it out just a little longer and see if telecommuting becomes a reality. The first option means a change of careers, the other two a change of modality. I could also take a leave without pay and explore alternatives for a while. As a first step I need to go see the nice folks over at human resources and learn about skills, competencies, job interviews, etc. I need to find out if they are courses I could take, seminars, certifications, training. Obviously I will not rush into anything. It's not like I can't stand one more minute, it's more like I dread a future of exactly the same.

Just back from dinner with Annie and M.A.Bought tickets for Puerto Rico next weekend. We are looking into cruises and more trips for later on, but we can't really decide yet. It depends on whether he will get his contract extended or not.Right now all that matters is to get some sleep. A lot of work is waiting for me tomorrow.

After work today I picked up Melissa and we went to the movies to see Dark Water. As scary movies go, we loved it. It perfectly rendered all the eerie creepiness of Roosevelt Island and the little girl who plays the daughter is absolutely adorable.After the movie I called M.A. because I was really feeling guilty. We are taking a day off Monday, and to be able to do so he is working his butt off. Over 13 hours today. I called the office not really expecting him to be there but ready to go help him off if he was. He was. Fortunately, he was almost done too, so by the time I walked Melissa home (she needs to be up by 6 AM to work at a day-care center from 7 AM to past 6 PM for practically no money) and cabbied uptown, he was out of there. We had a quiet dinner and now I am laying in bed, with the AC on on high, a fan at max speed blowing air directly over me, ready to catch all the sleep I did not get yesterday. The lovely little things that make life enjoyable.

No zoo today, just a nice lunch in the Park. While waiting for a table we were having an intense conversation on the meaning of life, as usual, and then a cigarette was the excuse to strike a conversation with a couple sitting at the bar. As luck will have it, they were debating the same issues. I just love talking to strangers!

Our day-trip to Fire Island got promptly canceled today when we realized we had to wait over an hour for the train. Instead, we changed plans on the fly and walked from Penn to Grand Central to get on another train, adn then a cab, to M.A.'s gym Beach Club in New Rochelle. In about three hours we were in the pool, out of the pool, at the bar, out of the beach club and back in Manhattan. Not everybody's idea of a relaxing day, but as much tranquillity as we can handle. So he went to the gym, I got into my bathtub with some great magazine before meeting again at home to plan future weekends. Firts trip: next Saturday we will be off to Nassau. Bermuda will probably be next.Tried to have dinner at Da Andrea but they wanted us to wait 20 minutes for a table, standing like idiots on the sidewalk. I don't think so. Had a very good duck at a Chinese place nearby instead.Time for some rest now so I can be awake and ready for our trip to the Bronx Zoo tomorrow.

Collateral damage

Great! The poor sucker was not involved at all. Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian electrician executed by the British police in connection with the second wave of bombings was just a regular guy. Too bad something about him did not look right to the cops. Sorry, dude, we screwed up.

And now there's this inane policy of randomly checking bags here in NYC. Wonderful. Such an efficient measure. I am sure they are going to catch a lot of poor kids carrying joints and we are all going to feel so much safer.

I am more than a little disturbed by the "incident" in London and the fact that nobody seems to find it strange. According to eye witnesses and news reports the guy was chased by the police and shot right there and then. I truly hope he was loaded with explosives and ready to blow himself up and take down a few people with him.

It was fun, really. I wouldn't lie, eventhough I know Chicca will be reading this. She, as everybody else so far, looks remarkably similar to the person I remember. Remarkably similar as in practically identical, minus the baby fat. We met at the Mercer and I knocked down a couple of watered-down mojitos while she sipped a glass of white wine before going downstairs for a dinner of soft-shell crab tempura, raw tuna and wasabi pizza, truffle and goat cheese pizza and a wonderful chocolate dessert. And a few more mojitos, of course. But watered-down, remember. The conversation was a steady stream of updates on just about everybody, starting with ourselves, interrupted by SMS to Marco in Milan and Ghego wherever he is.I left the Mercer at 9ish to let her crash and sleep away her severe jetlag.I started talking on the cell with different friends while walking uptown to get a cab and have stopped only a few minutes ago. I think my tongue is going to fall off.

Dinner at Mediterraneo yesterday was average at best. I don't think I will be going there for a while. After dinner both Francia and Annie went home, Francia because she was tired, Annie because she had to be there for Lisa’s arrival, so M.A. and I stopped briefly at Opal. Maybe it was the food, maybe the weather, maybe just too many mirrors around, but I was not in the best of moods. Well, OK, clearly not in the best of moods so after one beer we just went home to wait for Quique, who was flying in from Mexico. He arrived later than expected but we still stayed up chatting a bit. By 3.30 AM I went into my room to check my e-mail and read a little more of the creep’s blog and that’s about all I remember till this morning.So Lisa is in town now. She stayed with Annie for the night yesterday and will be moving to Dario’s sometime this afternoon. Today I will be having lunch with the two of them. I won't even have to go to the deli to get anything, as M.A. packed me some home-made gazpacho (by home-made I mean M.A.-made as obviously, and sadly, my home hasn’t learned to cook yet) this morning while I was getting ready to come to work. I felt a bit like a little girl being sent to school with a lunch bag but you won’t hear me complain.

Geek stuff

Via one of my favorite sites (http://www.lifehacker.com/), some stuff to check out NOW:

Today Chema sent me the URL of Joseph Edward Duncan III's blog. For those unfamiliar with his name, he is the creep who recently murdered a whole family and kidnapped and raped a surviving little girl. You can read his ramblings at http://fifthnail.blogspot.com/.

Unwittingly and unfortunately I positioned myself across from a mirror yesterday at Opal. I lifted my glance and saw my mother staring back at me. Instant depression. Fuck mirrors. What a horrible way to ruin a fun day.In the morning we had taken the train/bus combo to Jones Beach. The place was very busy. It was hot. The water was so so. It was packed with hot chicks. It sorely lacked hot guys. It was a struggle to get a beer. We took the train/bus combo back to Manhattan and walked to Chelsea Piers for breakfast/lunch/dinner. Then it was home, where we tried to watch Il est plus facile pour un chameau, hated it and watched Madagascar instead. After the movie it was Zarela until it closed, then Opal until the hot guys and chicks left then everything else was closed so we went shopping for food at the 24/7 supermarket and came home to have a sandwich and watch another movie. I passed out at the very beginning.No beach today, and certainly no mirrors.

It was beautiful today, sunny and warm. We got up and walked to Central Park, where we spent the day strolling around and we had lunch at the Boathouse, where the food was so-so, as usual, but the view was great, although we did not score a table by the water. When we finally came back home we were beat, especially M.A. who is obviously jetlagged. After much thought we decided to have dinner in the neighborhood and get back home early, so he wouldn't fall asleep on his food. Tomorrow I'll shut up, I promise, because today I cowardly took advantage of his sleepiness and yakked away all through dinner.

As was to be expected yesterday I barely gave him time to take a shower before I dragged him downtown to Pamen's to meet her and Nicolas. Nicolas split after dinner but M.A., Pamen and I went to a couple of bars, of the crowded loud variety. Eventually Pamen went home and we finished the evening at Lit.

This evening we spent some time looking at beaches we could go to for a couple of days but hurricane Dennis and unfriendly airplane schedules pretty much limited our options to places we can get to by either train or ferry. So, weather permitting, tomorrow we will be going to Robert Moses Beach for the day. We have thus now officialy slipped into last year's nice, easy routine. Good.

I suppose it doesn't really matter how one learns as long as one learns. So today, browsing blogs via Technorati I landed on "Body Electric"". Guess everybody (else) knows the title comes comes from a Walt Whitman poem. I didn't. I researched it, read the Wikipedia entry, read the whole enchilada. I am not sure about the whole poem, but these verses are beautiful:

I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough, To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough, To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough, To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment—what is this, then? I do not ask any more delight—I swim in it, as in a sea.

M.A. is arriving this evening. Yay! I am off to work in a little while and then I am taking Monday and Tuesday off.

In brief

I've been fairly busy these last days. Thursday I had dinner with a couple of senior coworkers, at their house. A lovely dinner by the way. Relaxed, interesting and yummy. And then yesterday, finally, Annie and I went to the gym after work. It was raining so bad that we cancelled our late night trip to Sephora and stayed home and ate tofu instead.

My friend Susan had one bloody digital photography class and this is the result (and her husband Ray is informing me that all the flowers are in their garden and all but one (the dahlia) were grown by Sue from seed). I am about to puke with envy!

One way or the other I will end my days in jail. If it's not Bittorrent, then this will be my downfall.

Brief little comment

I was incensed yesterday when I heard Beth Holloway Twitty's statement to the press (she is the mother of Natalee Holloway, the girl who went missing in Aruba, in case you are living under a rock). I found her accusations appaling.Being a mother in pain does not excuse ALL behaviour and I am happy somebody is answering to her bigotry.

I woke up to news of the London blasts.The idiot is already making stuttered statements in broken English. Time to stay away from Fox TV.They are already pictures moblogged or posted of Flickr. Quite upsetting.

"Candy Bowl – This can be anything that lures others into the workspace. It is an indication of an extrovert. Introverts don’t place anything that draws others in their workspace. " (via Open Loops).

I am definitely a candy bowl kind of person. I have been known to have all kinds of foods and drinks readily available to my coworkers. If it wasn't illegal, I would be distributing dope. Anything to keep' em coming

I've just discovered (a little late, you might say) TiddlyWiki and EV-DO. I am already playing with the former and downloading adaptations. As for the latter, I will wait until Sprint introduces its own, see if it's better and if the price comes down. Then I just might consider getting rid of my DSL+wireless network.

Long weekend: Sunday

Note to self: be careful with Oscar's parties. They are even more dangerous than Fabian's. Some people are just not discriminating enough. Yesterday Pamen and I went to a farewell barbecue for Nidia, a colleague who's moving to Switzerland. When we arrived the only person there except for Oscar himself and Nidia and her kids, was a Sri Lankan guy on a wheelchair. Mind you, I got nothing against Sri Lankans and nothing again weelchairers, but we were sort of expecting a more animated crowd. And then, just a few minutes past the formal introductions, the Sri Lankan left, after a bizarre phone conversation where he informed the caller that he was going home to go to the bathroom before meeting him/her. We stayed a while, eat some, drank some, then drank some more. Eventually we left and started looking for a decent bar with a decent amount of people. Being the 4th of July weekend there is nobody, and I mean nobody, in the city so we ended up buying Dulce de Leche ice-cream and going over to Nicolas'. Pamen and him played scrabble, I passed out on the couch.Today I might take the kids to see the fireworks.

Nicolas, a friend of his and I had lunch in Chelsea and then went shopping. I darted into DSW and came out with yet another couple of pairs of shoes. The girlie mood shows no signs of abating.When I was satisfied that I had jump started my VISA bill for the month, I went to pick up Melissa and get to the Museum of Natural History to meet Debra and a friend of hers. We were there to watch the Sonic Video show, greatly recommended by Debra.Personally, I thought it was just a cross between a giant screensaver and an early MTV video. Very, very passé. Dinner on the other hand was excellent. At Cafe Frida's the guacamole was chunkily delicious. The scallop ceviche scrumptious. Pity the caipirinhas were not up to par. After dinner we left Melissa home but we did not feel like calling it a night, so we looked for a after-midnight movie and ended up watching War of the Worlds. I loved it, Debra and her friend thought it was stupid. Granted, you have to suspend belief sometimes and some other times it seems the whole point of the story is to shut up Dakota Fanning's shrieks, but still, it's a great scary sci-fi movie.

I decided to stay home tonight. So I just had the longest, most relaxing bath. Reading a magazine. But two of the articles I read demand a comment, and nobody is home at this time to hear me out so here it goes. The first article is Man-Hunting With the High-School Dream Girls. What is this fascination with imbeciles? This is not the first article I read about the lives of underage wealthy or wealthy wanna-bes retards. Why bother writing about them? So they have fake I.D.s and they sleep around with men in their forties. What else is new? It doesn't strike me as a particularly novel pursuit. These are just the latest generation of the ever-present dim-wit who fancy themselves liberated and cool. They actually boast about the price of their ravioli ("In the end he paid for dinner. I had a really good meal. I had $50 ravioli."). The price of ravioli! This is seriously pathetic. And their ambition in life is to be "a representative of some corporation. Like if I'm doing press for JPMorgan, that's fine". Lofty goal. But what gets to me is that articles like these do such a disservice to the vast majority of kids who lead meaningful, productive lives. Why is it never about them? I would understand the titillating factor, but this is so boring, so mediocre. It's not like they are leading exciting, adventurous sex lives. For Chrissake, these chicks yearn to be knocked up and have to have their drinks paid by predatory losers!OK, that was my first rant, my second one is not even a rant, just a comment on delusion. Bobby Brown, yup, the one who hasn't had a hit song since the late 80s, is filming a reality show about his life. His motive, according to him, is that "Everybody wants to know what Bobby Brown is doing, so I figured IÂd give it to them without the middleman.". Excuse me? Everybody? I am still laughing.

After a rather dull day yesterday, a happy hour after work and some tapas later on, today was completely hectic. A couple of interesting, intense meetings plus a farewell drink for a guy at work. The shocking part was when we casually announced his father is 55 years-old. I did not dare to ask how old he is.In the evening I had an appointment with my hairdresser who did a great job, as usual, and also provided the usual entertainment. Checcho came with me but I had another boy pick him up at the salon and go out with him while Pamen, who has joined me at the salon, and I went for Asian food and tall mojitos a couple of blocks away. We were seated outside, in the patio, where a mouse terrorized us, and a few other people too, all night long. Around midnight Oscar and I went to Pamen's, from where I just came back. The conversation was confusing to say the least. We went from titillating celebrity gossip to downright disturbing personal problems. Fascinating. Gimme more.